RECOVERY, UNITY, SERVICE

Our Twelfth Step--carrying the message--is the basic service that A.A.'s Fellowship gives; this is our principal aim and the main reason for our existence.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART, p. 160

I thank God for those who came before me, those who told me not to forget the Three Legacies: Recovery, Unity and Service. In my home group, the Three Legacies were described on a sign which said: "You take a three legged stool, try to balance it on only one leg, or two. Our Three Legacies must be kept intact. In Recovery, we get sober together, in Unity, we work together for the good of our Steps and Traditions; and through Service--we give away freely what has been given to us."
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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

 

A.A. Thought for the Day

We have definitely left that dream world behind. It was only a sham. It was a world of our making and it was not the real world. We are sorry for the past, yes, but we learned a lot from it. We can put it down to experience, valuable experience, as we see it now, because it has given us the knowledge necessary to face the world as it really is. We had to become alcoholics in order to find the A.A. program. We would not have gotten it any other way. In a way, it was worth it. Do I look at my past as valuable experience?

Meditation for the Day

Shed peace, not discord, wherever you go. Try to be part of the cure of every situation, not part of the problem. Try to ignore evil, rather than to actively combat it. Always try to build up, never to tear down. Show others by your example that happiness comes from living the right way. The power of your example is greater than the power of what you say.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may try to bring something good into every situation today. I pray that I may be constructive in the way I think and speak and act today.
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Thought for Today

"But pain... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life.
Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on
regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from
life in addition to the pain?"

--Lois McMaster Bujold, "Barrayar", 1991

 

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Buddha/Zen Thoughts

Even though the training in ethics takes many forms, the ethics of abandoning the ten non-virtues is their basis. Of the ten non-virtues, three pertain to bodily actions, four to verbal actions, and three to mental actions.

The four verbal non-virtues are:

1. Lying: deceiving others through spoken words or physical gestures.

2. Divisiveness: creating dissension by causing those in agreement to disagree still further.

3. Harshness: abusing others.

4. Senselessness: talking about foolish things motivated by desire and so forth.

The opposite of these ten non-virtues are the ten virtues, and engaging in them is called the practice of ethics.

From "The Pocket Dalai Lama," edited by Mary Craig, 2002. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.

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Native American

"It's not the package and the wrapping which counts but what is inside, underneath the clothes and the skin."

--Lame Deer, LAKOTA

Our eyes and ears gather information that is fed to the mind, and we tend to form judgments, opinions and assumptions on what our perception is. We might see someone act a certain way, then label that person forever, not at all concentrating on what is inside the person. It matters not our height, our size, our facial features, or our gender. What matters is our thoughts. Good thoughts overcome all obstacles.

Great Spirit, let my inside contain Your qualities.

Nothing Like a Good Laugh To Get Us Out Of Self

Feeling sorry for yourself? Are those "damn people" not doing what you want? Try this tool.

REDOUBLING OUR EFFORTS

Daily Reflections

REDOUBLING OUR EFFORTS

To a degree, he has already done this when taking moral
inventory, but now the time has come when he ought to
redouble his efforts to see how many people he had hurt,
and in what ways.
TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS , p. 77

As I continue to grow in sobriety, I become more aware
of myself as a person of worth. In the process, I am
better able to see others as persons, and with this comes
the realization that these were people whom I had hurt in
my drinking days. I didn't just lie, I lied about Tom. I
didn't just cheat, I cheated Joe. What were seemingly
impersonal acts, were really personal affronts, because
it was people - people of worth - whom I had harmed. I
need to do something about the people I have hurt so that
I may enjoy a peaceful sobriety.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day
"The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We who have found this solution to our alcoholic problem, who are properly armed with the facts about ourselves, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic. We who are making the approach to new prospects have had the same difficulty they have had. We obviously know what we are talking about. Our whole deportment shouts at new prospects that we are people with a real answer." Am I a person with the real answer to the alcoholic problems of others?
Meditation for the Day
For straying from the right way there is no cure except to keep so close to the thought of God that nothing, no other interest, can seriously come between you and God. Sure of that, you can stay on God's side. Knowing the way, nothing can prevent your staying in the way and nothing can cause you to seriously stray from it. God has promised peace if you stay close to Him, but not leisure. You still have to carry on in the world. He has promised heart-rest and comfort, but not pleasure in the ordinary sense. Peace and comfort bring real inward happiness.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may keep my feet on the way. I pray that I may stay on God's side.
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Thought for Today

We teach best what we most need to learn. Richard Bach


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Buddha/Zen Thoughts

In the unthinkable, inscrutable, ordinary nature of reality there is no difference between freedom and bondage. No matter what arises, when you perceive your original nature, the joy arises automatically--and what joy!

-Shabkar, "The Flight Of The Garuda"

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Native American

"Nature is the storehouse of potential life of future generations and is sacred."
--Audrey Shenandoah, ONONDAGA
We need to honor and respect our Mother Earth. She is the source of all life. The sun shines life to the earth, then the earth produces life in all forms and in a balanced way. Everything is here to serve everything else. If we interrupt the flow in any way, we leave nothing for the future generations. Before every decision is made, we should ask, and answer, a final question, "If we do this, what will be the effects on the seventh generation? What will we cause our children to live with?" We need to have respect and love for all things and for all people. We need to do this for ourselves and for all the children still unborn.
My Creator, let me look at nature today and let me have the highest respect for all the things I see. All the two legged, the four legged, the winged ones, the plants, the water, the air, the Mother Earth. Let me have respect for myself.
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Keep It Simple
There are times we must grab God's and walk forward. --- Anonymous
Sometimes we struggle with being part of the problem, instead of being part of the solution.
Inside we know this, but somehow we can't Let Go and Let God.
To let go takes faith that the outcome will be okay. When we have faith, we know our Higher Power believes in us and will guide us. When we have faith, we believe in ourselves.
When we let go, we let go of our need to always be right. Letting go first takes place on the inside. Letting go allows us to change how we view what's happening. Often, all we really need is this change of attitude. This is the beauty of faith: it allows us to see the same thing in different
Ways.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, permit me to let go. Let me see that believing in You must also mean believing in myself.
Action for the Day: I will review my life since entering the Twelve Step program. I will work at seeing what good partners my Higher Power and I make.

OPENING NEW DOORS

Daily Reflections

They [the Promises] are being fulfilled among us---sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84

The promises talked about in this passage are slowly coming to life for me. What has given me hope is putting Step Nine into action. The Step has allowed me to see and set goals for myself in recovery.

Old habits and behaviors die hard. Working Step Nine enables me to close the door on the drunk I was, and to open new avenues for myself as a sober alcoholic. Making amends is crucial for me. As I repair relationships and behavior of the past, I am better able to live a sober life!

Although I have some years of sobriety, there are times when the "old stuff" from the past needs to be taken care of, and Step Nine always works, when I work it.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

When alcoholics are offered a life of sobriety by following the A.A. program, they will look at the prospect of living without alcohol and they will ask. "Am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some of the righteous people I see? I know I must get along without liquor, but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute?" Have I found a more than sufficient substitute for drinking?

Meditation for the Day

In God's strength you conquer life. Your conquering power is the grace of God. There can be no complete failure with God. Do you want to make the best of life? Then live as near as possible to God, the Master and Giver of all life. Your reward for depending on God's strength will be sure. Sometimes the reward will be renewed power to face life, sometimes wrong thinking overcome, sometimes people brought to a new way of living. Whatever success comes will not be all your own doing, but largely the working out of the grace of God.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may try to rely more fully on the grace of God. I pray that I may live a victorious life.

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Thought for Today

"In terms of being late or not starting at all, then it's never too late."

--Alison Headley, Digital Preservation and Blogs, SXSW 2006

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Buddha/Zen Thoughts

And what, monks, is Right Thought? The thought of renunciation, the thought of non-ill-will, the thought of harmlessness. This, monks, is called Right Thought.

-Digha Nikaya

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Native American

"...[W]isdom comes only when you stop looking for it and start truly living the life the Creator intended for you."

--Lelia Fisher, HOH

There are many things that block us from wisdom such as selfishness, secrets, hate, anger, jealousy and judgments. Another thing that can block us from wisdom is trying too hard or wishing something would happen. Wishing implies doubt and trying implies control. We need to let go of these things. We need to abandon ourselves to the Creator. As soon as we surrender everything, the wisdom starts to flow. The Elders know how to help us with this. Just ask them.

My Great Spirit, today I surrender my life and my will to Your care.

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Keep It Simple

One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears---by listening to them. ---Dean Rusk

We hate being told what to think. We like to make up our own minds. It helps to talk things out with another person who, listens to us. Someone who care what we think.
We can give this respect to others. We can listen their point of view. We can try to understand them and care about what they think.
When we do this, others start to care what we think too. We share ideas. The ideas get a little more clear. They change a little. We get a little closer to agreement. We both feel good.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me know when to listen and when to talk today. Work for me and though me. Thanks.

Action for the Day: Today, I’ll look for chances to listen to others when I really want to talk. I’ll say, “Tell me more about that.” And I’ll listen.

LOVE AND TOLERANCE

Daily Reflections

Love and tolerance of others is our code.

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 84

I have found that I have to forgive others in all situations to maintain any real spiritual progress. The vital importance of forgiving may not be obvious to me at first sight, but my studies tell me that every great spiritual teacher has insisted strongly upon it.

I must forgive injuries, not just in words or as a matter of form, but in my heart. I do this not for the other persons' sake, but for my own sake. Resentment, anger, or a desire to see someone punished, are things that rot my soul. Such things fasten my troubles to me with chains. They tie me to other problems that have nothing to do with my original problem.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

When we were drinking, we used to worry about the future. Worry is terrible mental punishment. What's going to become of me? Where will I end up? In the gutter or the sanitarium? We can see ourselves slipping, getting worse and worse, and we wonder what the finish will be. Sometimes we get so discouraged in thinking about the future that we toy with the idea of suicide. In A.A., have I stopped worrying about the future?

Meditation for the Day

Functioning on a material plane alone takes me away from God. I must also try to function on a spiritual plane. Functioning on a spiritual plane as well as on a material plane will make life what it should be. All material activities are valueless in themselves alone. But all activities, seemingly trivial or of seemingly great moment, are all alike if directed by God's guidance. I must try to obey God as I would expect a faithful, willing servant to carry out directions.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that the flow of God's spirit may come to me through many channels. I pray that I may function on a spiritual plane as well as on a material plane.

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Thought for Today

"Keep praying, but be thankful that God's answers are wiser than your prayers!"

--William Culbertson

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Buddha/Zen Thoughts

There is really nothing you must be and there is nothing you must do. There is really nothing you must have and there is nothing you must know. There is really nothing you must become. However, it helps to understand that fire burns, and when it rains, the earth gets wet.

-Zen saying

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Native American

"You have wandered away from your teachings. You must concentrate on your spiritual teachings...Don't be sidetracked."

--Henry Quick Bear, LAKOTA

Why are the Elders always telling us to know The culture and listen to the teachings? When We go off track, why do the Elders say, return to the teachings? The teachings tell us how to live in harmony with the Laws and principles of the Great Spirit. Living means Life – a good life, a happy life. Many of us have grown up without the teachings and the culture, that is why we don't know how to live. To improve on relationships, to treat our children with honor and to respect our Elders, we need to live by the old teachings again.

Great Spirit, today, show me how to live.

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Keep It Simple

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years of trying to get other people interested in you. --- Dale Carnegie


We wanted friends, but our addiction wanted all our attention. We had no time to be close to others.
Well, stand aside, addiction! The program has taught us that others are important. Our purpose is to help others. People have become what’s important to us.
Now we listen to others. We help them do what they want to do, not what we want them to do. We help people instead of use them. Friendship is now a way of life. And another promise of the program becomes a part of us.


Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me to know that I’m here to help others, not just myself. Through others, I find myself.



Today’s’ Action: Today I’ll help someone the way he or she wants to be helped.

LIVING IT

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it.
ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, p. 83

When new in the program, I couldn't comprehend living the spiritual aspect of the program, but now that I'm sober, I can't comprehend living without it. Spirituality was what I had been seeking. God, as I understand Him, has given me answers to the whys that kept me drinking for twenty years. By living a spiritual life, by asking God for help, I have learned to love, care for and feel compassion for all my fellow men, and to feel joy in a world where, before, I felt only fear.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day
A.A. Thought for the Day

The Alcoholics Anonymous program has borrowed from medicine, psychiatry, and religion. It has taken from these what it wanted and combined them into the program which it considers best suited to the alcoholic mind and which will best help the alcoholic to recover. The results have been very satisfactory, We do not try to improve on the A.A. program. Its value has been proved by the success it has had in helping thousands of alcoholics to recover. It has everything we alcoholics need to arrest our illness. Do I try to follow the A.A program just as it is?
Meditation for the Day

You should strive for a union between your purposes in life and the purposes of the Divine Principle directing the universe. There is no bond of union on earth to compare with the union between a human soul and God. Priceless beyond all earth's rewards is that union. In merging your heart and mind with the heart and mind of the Higher Power, a oneness of purpose results, which only those who experience it can ever dimly realize. That oneness of purpose puts you in harmony with God and with all others who are trying to do His will.
Prayer for the Day
I pray that I may become attuned to the will of God. I pray that I may be in harmony with the music of the spheres.

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Thought for Today

"Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch - what makes you go beyond the norm."

--Cicely Tyson
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Buddha/Zen Thoughts

Faith is the basis of the path, the mother of virtue; it nourishes all roots of goodness. Wu-chien

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Native American

"Everyone got to find the right path. You can't see it so it's hard to find. No one can show you. Each person got to find the path by himself."
--Charlie Knight, UTE

There are certain times in our lives when a voice whispers to us. The voice doesn't always talk. Usually we hear it best when we are sick an tired of being sick and tired. Inside of every person is the knowledge that a Supreme Being exists. Sometimes a restlessness occurs and it makes me feel I need to be doing something or I need to be going somewhere or maybe I start wondering who am I? Often when this happens, I feel lost. Inside of everyone is the natural, built-in desire to be walking the Red Road, or to be seeking a relationship with the Creator. No one can force us to make this journey. We must make this journey because we want to. This journey is not on the outside. The path is inside of ourselves. It is inside that we must begin our search.

Oh Great Spirit, help me this day to look within myself. If trouble arises, let me realize that it's not what is going on but how I am looking at what's going on. Give me Your power this day to conduct myself according to Your way of life.

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Keep It Simple

Made a list of all persons we had harmed . . . --- First half of Step Eight
By the time we get to Step Eight, we're ready to work on our relationships.
We start by making a list of all persons we've harmed. We look at where we
have been at fault. We own our behavior.

Now we're healing, and we must help others to heal too. Our list must be as
complete as we can make it. As our recovery goes on we'll remember others
we have hurt. We add them to our list. By doing this, we heal even more.
Remember, this Step is for us. It is to help us stay sober.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me make a complete list. Help me keep it open-ended.

Allow me and those I've harmed to be healed.

Action for the Day: Even if I've made a list before, I'll make another one today. I will list all those I have harmed.

NEW SOIL . . . NEW ROOTS

Moments of perception can build into a lifetime of spiritual serenity, as I have excellent reason to know. Roots of reality, supplanting the neurotic underbrush, will hold fast despite the high winds of the forces which would destroy us, or which we would use to destroy ourselves.

AS BILL SEES IT, p. 173

I came to A.A. green --- a seedling quivering with exposed taproots. It was for survival but it was a beginning. I stretched, developed, twisted, but with the help of others, my spirit eventually burst up from the roots. I was free. I acted, withered, went inside, prayed, acted again, understood anew, as one moment of perception struck. Up from my roots, spirit-arms lengthened into strong, green shoots: high-springing servants stepping skyward.

Here on earth God unconditionally continues the legacy of higher love. My A.A. life put me "on a different footing . . . [my] roots grasped a new soil" (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 12)

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought for the Day

People believe in A.A. when they see it work. An actual demonstration is what convinces them. What they read in books, what they hear people say doesn't always convince them. But when they see a real honest-to-goodness change take place in a person, a change from a drunkard to a sober, useful citizen, that's something they can believe because they can see it. There's really only one thing that proves to me that A.A. works. Have I seen the change in people who come into A.A.?

Meditation for the Day

Divine control and unquestioning obedience to God are the only conditions necessary for a spiritual life. Divine control means absolute faith and trust in God, a belief that God is the Divine Principle in the universe and that He is the intelligence and the Love that controls the universe. Unquestioning obedience to God means living each day the way you believe God wants you to live, constantly seeking the guidance of God in every situation and being willing to do the right thing at all times.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may always be under Divine Control and always practice unquestioning obedience to God. I pray that I may be always ready to serve Him.

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Thought for Today

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only
you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other
people spend it for you."

Carl Sandburg

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Buddha/Zen Thoughts

Anger is the real destroyer of our good human qualities; an enemy with a weapon cannot destroy these qualities, but anger can. Anger is our real enemy.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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Native American

"Each creature has a medicine, so there are many medicines. Because they are so close to the Creator, they are to communicate that medicine. Then they bring help and health."

--Wallace Black Elk, LAKOTA

The Elders say everything has a purpose and everything has a will. We should never interfere with purpose or the will of everything. Every plant, creature, animal, insect, human being has a purpose to be here on the Earth. Each has a special medicine to contribute for the good of all things. Each person also has good medicine, a special talent, a special gift. These medicines are to help others or to help make us healthy. What is your special medicine?

Creator, today, help me discover and use my medicine to serve a greater good.

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Keep It Simple

One meets his destiny often on the road one takes to avoid it. --- French proverb

None of us, perhaps, ever thought we'd end up in recovery. But we were working at joining recovery years before we got here! Maybe recovery was our fate from the day we first took a drink or a pill. Others around us could see the writing on the wall, but we couldn't. We were to busy trying to avoid the pain. Alcoholism and other drug abuse have to do with us trying to find spiritual wholeness--- the kind of spiritual wholeness we're finding now. . .in recovery. So, let's welcome recovery into our lives. We have found our spiritual home.


Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, I got lost because I acted like I knew the way to a good life. You lead the way. Thank-you for putting me on the right track.


Action for the Day: Today, I'll think about why it's my fate to be in recovery. I will list ways that I try to avoid my fate.